‘Bystanders’ And ‘The Rebrand’ To Play As Part of Black Sunday Film Festival 2025
Essex premiere genre festival, the Black Sunday Film Festival returns for its sixth edition! This year, the festival will be held at Firstsite, Colchester, from Thursday, May 1, to Saturday, May 3, and they’re bringing a wave of exciting genre titles to attendees!
The festival starts on May 1 with the UK premieres of Kaye Adelaide’s lesbian influencer mockumentary The Rebrand and Mary Beth McAndrews’ indie revenge thriller Bystanders. They’ll also be hosting the Essex premiere of Steffen Haars and Flip Van der Kuil’s Krazy House, starring Nick Frost and Alicia Silverstone.
Friday kicks off with the Essex premiere of Jonathan Zaurin’s socially isolated Derelict, followed by the UK premiere of Danny Villanueva’s eerie and traumatic found footage hit What Happened To Dorothy Bell. Then follows the Essex premiere of Joy Wilkinson’s SXSW thriller 7 Keys and Baskin filmmaker Can Evrenol’s revenge horror Sayara. The festival then hosts the UK premiere of Scott Goldberg’s The Forest Hills starring Edwards Furlong and the late Shelley Duvall in her final big-screen appearance.
Then, Saturday opens with the Essex premiere of Damon Rickard’s debut feature film Never Have I Ever, followed by the UK premieres of Kati Kelli’s Girl Internet Show: A Kati Kelli Mixtape and Sergio Pereda’s found footage chiller Stream. Then comes Dean Puckett’s gripping folk horror The Severed Sun.
The festival will close, as is tradition, with the Cult Film Secret Screening presented by Arrow Video.
Along with their feature lineup is a program of 17 short films from around the world! The shorts will play ahead of each feature presentation, including films by Black Sunday alumni including David Yorke’s Nervous Ellie, Panad Production’s Fisitor, Bastiaan Rook’s Citroen, Tony Hipwell’s Body Worn Video, and Lisa Ovies’ Sleep Tight.
Other short films screening from the UK include Ethan Evans’ Outside Noise, Alejandro Alberola’s Black Hole Barry, Livvy Edwards’ Aetherium, Richard Rowntree’s Gory Hole, Olivia J. Loader’s Hallowed, and Johnny Herbin’s Cakes.
There’s also a great selection of international shorts playing, including Venita Ozols-Graham’s The Ossan (USA), Javier Chavanel’s Nap (Spain), Simon Birman’s Fluids (France), Sami Ylönen’s Prettify (Finland), Michael Niels Køppen Kunov’s Fomo / Armageddon (Denmark) and Emelie Dahlskog’s The Mannequin (Sweden).
Tickets for the Black Sunday Film Festival go on sale on March 7, 2025. Learn more at blacksundayff.com or follow the festival on X and Instagram @blacksunday_co.
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